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Following we are going in March DD will be 3 DS will be 16 Months

We went on one Disney cruise and are doing another this summer. The shows and caliber of entertainment are insane. Totally top-notch. They also do a good job of having multiple meet and greet times each day for characters so if you miss Cinderella at 11, you can make plans to try to see her at 3 or 7, etc.

The food wasn't great and wasn't as good as other cruise lines and their private cruise line Caribbean island isn't as nice as some others we've been on/to which stinks since they are considerably more expensive than most other cruise lines. Overall it wasn't as WOW as I was expecting for the $$$$, but we did really enjoy it obviously as we're shelling out again to go lol

@Charm54: We're leaving on a 4-day cruise in 8 days. I'll report back when we return!!

We haven't done a Disney Cruise, but we did a regular cruise with my 2 and 4 year old and they both LOVED it. We did a 4-night cruise and definitely could've done another day. I'm betting a Disney Cruise will be even MORE fun and your 3.5 year old will definitely love it!!

As far as motion-sickness, my kids weren't affected at all. Motion-sickness runs in my family, but seems to get worse as we get older, so I felt it, but Dramamine was my best friend, and the ship traveled mostly at night (at least on our cruise), so it wasn't much of an issue. The kids were totally fine!

We went on a Disney cruise this past summer – 7 days – with my all of my in-laws. MIL, FIL, SIL/BIL, SIL/BIL, DH, me, niece 14, nephew 9, niece 6, DS 2.5, DD 6 months.

There are always things to do. The daily schedule had kids items, family items, adult only items, Disney movies, and character showings at all times. The movies are relatively new. We went in August and they were showing Cars 3. They had about six new Disney movies, but I don’t remember what. (There was a superhero film, but I don’t remember which one.) In addition, there are mysteries that one can solve with the Muppets. They use the pictures on the stairwells (forward, midship, and astern).

There are characters all over and they show up multiple times a day for pictures. We weren’t interested in that (my DS still doesn’t know most characters), but my SIL with the 9 and 6 year old got lots of pictures. She was also able to take pictures herself, so you don’t have to buy the expensive photos by the ship.

For pools, children must be toilet trained, however, there is a splash pad for those who are not. There are multiple splash pads, multiple pools with different depths, from 2’ to 4’ to 6’. I think those are the depths, with my infant, I barely used the pools.

The kids club is toilet trained and 3. The older kids seemed to enjoy it. DS and DD enjoyed the one room that was occasionally open to them with a parent available.

They do a rotational dinner, which means that you keep your wait staff and change dining rooms. Each dining room has its own aspects. My favorite was the Art of Animation which had Nemo and Dory playing games with us. They had the fish guessing game from Finding Nemo. The second night, we drew our characters which were animated during desert. I could even tell my DSs character, because it was scribbles of arms, legs, torso, and head.

The shows are quite good and some of the entertainers have a headlining family friendly act and an adult only act later in the evening. They did a showing of Aladdin and DS did well even though it was after his bedtime.

Depending upon whether your kids nap or can stay up late, the main show is at 6:30 or 8:00. Dinner is at 5:45 or 8:00. You can only have the early dinner and late show or the late dinner and early show. We always go for the early dinner and late show, because we can always skip the show. My kids are usually okay even with staying up late, but that would depend upon your kids. We kept them up late, but that’s because we really wanted to see the shows. DD did fall asleep in the show, but neither of my kids get loud and cranky, they just get mellow when tired.

I thought their private island in the Bahamas was the best. I have been on Princess, Royal Caribbean, and Carnival as well. The other thing is that they have a tram to get to different areas. They even have a kids club on Castaway Cay. They have two play structures in the water that are included with the price. One is for children while the other is for anyone. DH and I rode the slides for anyone, though your children would probably be good as well. We went out to the children’s area and were throwing DS into the water. We brought his puddle jumper on the trip. They also have life jackets available for no additional cost.

Personally, I refuse to go on another vacation with more than 1 nap, but my kids don’t sleep on the go. They need to be in their bed. DH or I were stuck in the room often with a sleeping DD.

For seasickness, unless the cruise has some bad weather, most people don’t have a problem. Cruise ships have stabilizers under the water to prevent much rolling, which causes seasickness. Seasickness is a type of motion sickness in that the eyes and ears (balance) aren’t seeing the same thing. I get sick on small boats and even larger ships, but have never had any problems on a cruise ship. Cruise ships will also try to avoid bad weather. In fact, if the weather is bad enough, you may miss a port call. Due to a tropical storm near Cozumel, we didn’t get to go there.

@yoursilverlining: Wait, there's 2 bathrooms in the cabin?!

ETA: Yes, THAT was my takeaway from that paragraph, ha!

You've gotten a lot of great responses and I don't have much to add (when we went, LO1 was only 16 months so a different experience than with older LOs), but just wanted to say that both LO1 and DH get motion sickness generally (especially in cars), and they were both fine without medication.

We did a 7 day cruise and I was happy to have that much time. I am really hoping to do another cruise soon but am trying to decide if we should wait until both my kids are old enough for the kids clubs (if we go in the next couple years, LO2 will still have to be in the nursery, and I doubt he'd want to be separated from his big sis).

@Charm54: Ha, I know what you mean. We are also considering Spring 2019 but there is no way I am going to book now. When we did ours, I booked about 6 months in advance, but we did a less popular time (early February) so the rates were still relatively low. I forget how it works with cruises, can you book now but change your reservation later if you need to? I know you only need to put down a deposit and definitely not the whole amount up front. Might be worth calling someone to see (either Disney directly or a travel agent if you are using one).

@Charm54: I think we did book our exact room right away. I know some of them connect but you'd have to know which ones. I would definitely work with a travel agent for that type of thing!

@Charm54: FIL booked in June/July 2016 for an August 2017 cruise. I knew this was the plan and informed them of the pregnancy very early to ensure that we would be able to go. DD had to be 6 months to go on the cruise and they were working with older kids around school time. The cruise was their 50th wedding anniversary celebration.

We did have connecting rooms. It was rather nice to be able to hear the monitor from the next room over.

So long as the kids are over 3 and can go to kid's club you should be great! We've done 2 with younger kids than you have and had a lot of fun. I wouldn't recommend going any longer than 4 days. We've done a 7 night and a 6 night and you can feel all the kids on the ship getting overtired after about the 5th night.

@Charm54: Yeah, 4 nights was plenty. I think maybe a 5 night would be about the max I could tolerate, although I might be convinced to go for a longer cruise to do the Star Wars Day at Sea because I'm pretty it would blow my son's mind. But yeah, by Friday I think the kids were on the verge of being overstimulated for too long.

Our cruise stopped at Nassau, Bahamas and at Castaway Cay. Castaway Cay was great! We didn't get to do the snorkeling, but several of our family members did and they said it was pretty good! It was nice that the food on Castaway Cay was included so we didn't have to worry about bringing cash off the ship. On the Nassau day, we opted to stay on the boat and take advantage of the smaller crowds, which was pretty nice!

@Charm54: Awesome! We loved our 7-night cruise. We wanted to do another one but didn’t want to go to the Bahamas again and a 5-night worked better with our dates so we’ll be doing a 5-night out of San Diego We had a Disney Jr character breakfast on ours and I’ve heard they only have those on 7+ night cruises so may be something to consider if you think your LOs would enjoy it! It’s Mickey, Minnie, Doc McStuffins, Sofia, Jake from Neverland Pirates.